Three Words // Joshler

23 (part 1)

(Trees speech: night one at MSG)

I watched as Josh walked away from his drum kit and down to the pits. The crowd cheered as he got closer. He grabbed a girls hand to help him up and I saw him flash a grin at her, and I swear she fainted. He got up on the platform that the crowd held up with the small drum kit atop. He looked around and I put my hands on the keys of the piano as we started to play our song Ride.

"I've been thinking too much, help me," the crowd sang along and I leaned my head back as I listened. The song finished and the crowd cheered as Josh came back on stage.

We played more songs until it got to Trees, a song I wrote when I was 17. I say a speech before I play the song every time. I started to play the chords as the blue-ish light slowly came on, surrounding only me. I heard people shouting, "Thank you Tyler!" "We love you!"

"You know," I started, "when I got here earlier today, we were soundchecking, I was standing on this stage, looking around at an empty arena. And I could only-I could only think of, this three word phrase. And after soundcheck, anyone I brought into backstage, people I know, people who work with us, all I had on my lips were those three words."

There were more cheers, "I wanna tell you what those three words were,"

I leaned back and away from the mic, "The first word, the first one I'd like to define, clarify. The first word is 'we'. And when I say 'we', I don't just mean me. I don't just mean, that other guy over there on the drums,"

There were a few cheers and handclaps as I let a small smile form, "I don't just mean, our label, booking agency, publishing--all those people here with us tonight, checking us out, watching us what you created--it's not just our family, it's not just our friends, it's not just the other bands that play with us, it's not this amazing crew that tours with us,"

There were more cheering, "It's not just," I paused as I repeated what I just said, "our amazing crew that tours with us again,"

The cheering continued and Josh added in a little drum beat. I continued to play the chords as I went on, "Somehow it's not just you guys. In this room. But it's the thousands of other people who are going to hear about this show, too. And it's all of us combined."

I let the crowd cheer as I kept talking, "Listen, so that was just to define the first word, 'we'. That's what I mean when we say we. The phrase is this--I couldn't stop saying it all day. Anyone I saw, they just said, 'What do you think of this, man?' I just said,"

"We did it."

I could hear the crowd cheer even louder than before, "Listen," I paused, "every single one of you that just listened to me say that right now, you can yell afterwards--this is a celebration--
we did it!"

The crowd cheered and yelled out 'we did it!' because we did. I smiled and leaned down a little. I felt on top of the world. We made it up here with all the big names and sold out two nights at the biggest venue to ever play at. It's huge.

"Would you please give it up for my very good friend, wouldn't be up here without him, Josh Dun on the drums," I looked over at him as the lights lit up around him. Everyone cheered so loudly and I couldn't help but smile as he mouthed the words 'stop!' and hit the cymbals. He 'cast a spooky spell', as he likes to call it, on me and smiled. He looked down at his feet as the lights dimmed back on me.

"Well we almost gave you everything we had and I promise you we're gonna give you everything we have left," The cheers continued as I played the chords a little more. Letting a smile form on my face once again, I held my head back then looked out to see people start to turn on the flashlights on their phones and wave them as I went into the song.